Wednesday, 1 May 2013

Local Election Day.

Yes, it's local election day. Are you yawning already? After all, it's hard to get excited about voting for councillors. We all know that they spend most of their time playing power-games, demanding double yellow lines outside their own houses while potholes get deeper where you live. That they'll fritter money on new computers, office chairs, fancy bollards on the cycle path near their own houses, leaving nothing left to pay for care homes or refuse collections.

At least - that is the fantasy. In practise some work hard, others don't. Some listen to their electors while others get carried away with the politics. Some beaver away behind the scenes and we never know how much they do while others spout from their soapboxes to make sure we all know how wonderful they are.

We know all that - and I'll still trot off to the polling station and place my cross.

Because how can complain if a councillor doesn't do his or her bit if I haven't done mine? I want to whinge about rural transport (we now have no buses at all on a Sunday), but if I can't be bothered to make a detour to the polling station once every few years then how can I expect a councillor to make an effort on my behalf - or complain when he or she fails to do anything?

But it goes deeper than that. Women chained themselves to railings just so I could vote. They were sidelined, ridiculed. They marched through London and were beaten by policemen. They went to prison, had tubes pushed down their throats so they could be force-fed. One died under the hooves of a horse. What if they'd given up? It they'd returned to their firesides, cowed, defeated?

14 comments:

Absolutely!!!Told all my students they MUST vote - for, in case of girls, that very reason. It's no good saying 'ooh my vote doesn't count' when their vote could be the one that gains their party the majority.

Here, here! I'd never not vote, ever. We don't have elections here today but I'd urge all those who have to go and vote. My local councillor was brilliant when I was campaigning against the appalling care that Mum received in the Leicester General Hospital. He did all he could to help me raise awareness. Sadly the neglect is still going on at that hospital but that's another issue!

Don't get me started on neglect of the elderly in hospitals, Ros - I'm locked in dispute with a hospital the other side of London, who refuse to respond to my letters and emails ... if only it were local and I could get the councillor involved!

Yes I agree with you.I do vote but mopst of the time I have no idea who I'm voting for .I usually vote for the person who lives local and not in the posh suburbs and who I think will do most good for the people who need it.

Good for you, Jo!! I couldn't agree more! Sadly, I don't practise what I preach. Due to the circumstances of my life of non-citizenship in the countries in which I have lived, I have not been allowed to vote in national elections since I was in my early twenties in the UK with one historic exception: the 1994 national elections in South Africa. I am allowed to vote in local elections here, but because of the nature of the coalition system, and my challenges with the language, I have never quite been able to figure out who does what in my local government (also a coalition system) and as elections are always during the week, I am never 'at home' in Zeeland when they have them, so I am confined to making my voice heard through email petitions about the things I feel strongly about. I do - quite frequently and probably annoyingly for those concerned.

Hi Jo - I voted ... and it is essential ... we can only hope the politicians can sort life out and give us a country that's stable, preferably wealthier and definitely wiser somehow .. people who think, and who care - the populace especially ..